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got the stuff from his sister at the local car booth sale.
Apparently they father was British, they mother Flemish, and he was born in the US.
The mug comes from a different car booth sale. Yes there was a lot to do over here.
At the moment festivity's are going on to commemorate the liberation of greatest parts of Belgium.
Where I live at the moment, it toke a few weeks more ....

Hugh,
Thanks for the suggestions. There's quite a few things for me to think about.
My original idea was stop at 30 medals (one nice rack of 30 medals) but I got a few offers from sellers I couldn't resist so added 3 more medals...and the biggest single ribbon/medal rack available is 30 so I opted for the next best thing of 9 per rack which leaves me with 3 extra spaces right now.
And you are right: I made the classic mistake of going ''oh that's a nice medal, I'll buy it'' instead of focusing on a single branch of the military. The only services I actively tried to exclude was the navy and coast guard since it seemed I had to draw the line somewhere but even so a navy medal or two have slipped in.
The other natural option is to split the collection into: army, air force and marine which will involve 3 hypothetical soldiers.
The obvious first point in all 3 cases is to decide when the soldier enlisted because that would impact the campaign medals and the natural progression of medals thereafter. The enlistment date will also obviously affect the date of retirement for each soldier as, for example, a naval aviator that was a hot-shot pilot in WWII, was probably either dead or very well into retirement when 9/11 rolled around.

Bophutatswana, faithful service prisons. (long service good conduct 10 years)
wrong ribbon
KwaZulu good service medal 10 year service
I believe this is the same medal with an incorrect ribbon added for good old fashioned confusion.
both are numbered on the edge.

Is this plaque "post-war" or "at-war"? I have similar plaques but I have to admit that this one is looking slightly more entertaining than mine.
If you ever grow tired of it, you'll know the right buyer.

Hello Eric,
This is a spomenica in itself! It was awarded to living relatives of fallen partisans. So it's the spomenica to the dead. It entitled the family to some social benefits as those of the living holders, but there was no award beside this paper. I was discussing precisely this with BalkanCollector just a few days ago, he even showed me one like this with several names on the same document, an entire fallen family!

Here is the Ciskei Decoration for Merit. Very shiny and almost impossible to photograph.
I know you didn't ask for this one but I had the pictures handy so here goes.
Ciskei medal for faithful service
not sure if the ribbon is corect, but it looks like it might be original.

One more.
This is the Correctional sevices medal for merit from Kwazulu.
I believe the ribbon is incorrect on both of ours. I read about the difference with yours just a few days ago but I can't find it anymore.
I'll keep looking.
jan
This is the Insignia for bravery , Ciskei police with correct ribbon.

Hi Marco,
Thank you and sorry it's taken so long to reply. It's been a busy week.
I'll post all the medals today and try to asnwer some of your questions.
I'll start with the Bophutatswana defense force merit medal you posted.
I've looked and unfortunately I have no answer why these are different. Yours seems to be the prototypical version and mine clearly is the odd one out. Quality is not bad and the stamping is pretty clean both front and rear. It might be a fake but my brother bought it in the mid 90's so who knows if they were faked that far back. The other option is it's something else. After all there is so much not know about these homeland medals.
Jan
Here are the closeup pictures of my version, difficult medal to photograph well.
Jan

That's quite an eclectic collection. I'd suggest that you start by sorting ribbons into groups to represent one service and a period of time. For example, World War 2, Naval aviator. That could include your Silver Star, Air Medal, Purple Heart, Asia Pacific campaign medal, Korean Defense Service Medal. You might add the Atlantic campaign medal and the UN Korean medal to this group. A Distinguished Flying Cross wouldn't be out of place. If your hypothetical recipient continued to serve for a full career, he might have picked up a Legion of Merit toward the end of his career. There are many foreign awards which would logically fit into these racks: French Croix de Guerre, etc. Since you have already decided on racks of 9, you could fill up empty spaces with these foreigners appropriate to the time and campaign.

It transpires that the US Library of Congress has a copy of this photo in their collection, the details of which suggest (not necessarily correctly) that it was taken between 1915 and 1920. Here is the link,
https://www.loc.gov/pictures/item/2014707821/
The tiff photo which can be downloaded from this link is of a higher definition than we have seen before. I don't think that they add a great deal to the investigation but I am posting below two extracts from the original which are of a better quality than the enlargement I originally posted.
[for some reason, I can't delete the double posted image ]